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			<h1>Caveat emptor and the McDonald&apos;s coffee case</h1>
			<p>Written in <span title="Ethics and Social Responsibility">PHIL 1404</span> of <a href="http://www.uopeople.edu/">University of the People</a>, finalized on 2017-03-15</p>
		</header>
<p>
	The famous lawsuit against McDonald&apos;s for their coffee being too hot is often cited as a reason warning labels have to be added to everything.
	Customers are idiots who can&apos;t even figure out that coffee is served hot, so who knows how else they might hurt themselves?
	To protect against liability, companies add warning labels announcing even the most ridiculous of dangers that anyone in their right mind would already be wary of even without the warning.
	But was that case really as it&apos;s been made out to be?
	As it turns out, not so much.
</p>
<p>
	McDonald&apos;s wasn&apos;t just serving their coffee hot.
	They were serving their coffee <strong>*too*</strong> hot.
	<strong>*Dangerously*</strong> hot, even.
	The known maximum safe coffee temperature is 68℃.
	At this temperature, the liquid is plenty hot, but it won&apos;t cause burns.
	However, as temperature increases beyond that point, the danger grows.
	McDonald&apos;s was serving their coffee at 85℃ (Brusseau, n.d.), seventeen degrees hotter than is actually safe to drink!
	Should customers be expected to assume that their drinks are too hot to safely be used as intended?
	McDonald&apos;s claimed to think most customers bought their coffee on the way to somewhere, and would only start drinking once they got there.
	Their argument was that by making the coffee too hot now, it&apos;s be the perfect temperature upon arrival.
	However, there&apos;d previously been about seven hundred claims against McDonald&apos;s in regards to this scalding coffee.
	Clearly, McDonald&apos;s was quite aware that customers, or at least some customers, drink their coffee as soon as they order it.
	It seems much more reasonable for customers buying their coffee for later to expect cold coffee than it does for customers drinking it right away to expect <strong>*dangerous*</strong> coffee.
	Typically, when making coffee, one doesn&apos;t brew it, wait for it to cool, then drink it; they drink it right after brewing.
</p>
<h2>Caveat emptor</h2>
<p>
	&quot;Caveat emptor&quot; is a Latin phrase; it translates into English as &quot;Let the buyer beware&quot; (Brusseau, n.d.).
	In terms of the ethics of economics, it&apos;s used to describe the position that the customer and the customer alone is responsible for the quality of the products and services they buy.
	If a customer&apos;s unsatisfied, they should&apos;ve done more research before buying the product or service.
	Under this philosophy, the sellers and the and the advertisers shoulder none of the burden of guilt.
</p>
<p>
	According to the doctrine of caveat emptor, Stella Liebeck, who burned themself with McDonald&apos;s coffee, is responsible for their own burns.
	Liebeck purchased coffee, and McDonald&apos;s delivered.
	Any promise of quality from McDonald&apos;s, whether explicit or implied, is irrelevant.
	It was up to Liebeck to be careful with the product and assume the worst until proven untrue.
	Liebeck had no guarentee that the coffee <strong>*wouldn&apos;t*</strong> be dangerously hot.
	Likewise, had the beverage contained secret and noxious ingredients, the sole blame lies with Liebeck for deciding to make the purchase.
</p>
<h2>Age</h2>
<p>
	Liebeck was seventy-nine years old.
	The assignment to which this essay is a submission for asks if their age makes justifying an attitude of caveat emptor more difficult.
	In other words, should the elderly be protected from hot coffee while the young be offered no protection?
	The only way this makes sense is if McDonald&apos;s is serving dangerous coffee to the young and safe coffee to the elderly.
	I don&apos;t believe in dual standards though.
	While McDonald&apos;s was clearly in the wrong here, and while the concept of caveat emptor is unreasonable, neither have anything to do with Liebeck&apos;s age.
	Everyone should get the same treatment and cases should be handled in a similar manner.
	The McDonald&apos;s crew don&apos;t know who will buy the coffee, so they can&apos;t give special treatment to the elderly.
	Furthermore, Liebeck bought the coffee from the drive-through window while their grandchild drove the car.
	The grandchild would&apos;ve been the one to place the order at the menu board, the one to pay for the order at the first window, and the one to pick up the order at the second window.
	No one in McDonald&apos;s would know that Liebeck was elderly, so even if McDonald&apos;s was serving safer coffee to old people, Liebeck would&apos;ve received the same scalding coffee that they already did.
	In other words, they&apos;d still have suffered these third-degree burns.
	Furthermore, the concept doesn&apos;t even apply in general more to the elderly than the young.
	Age comes with experience, it&apos;s true.
	However, different people will have different experiences in their lives.
	It&apos;s unreasonable to assume that after a certain age, you&apos;re familiar with a certain company&apos;s products, especially a single particular product that they offer.
	Without experience with that particular, individual product, the elderly have no advantage on the young in terms of deciding what to buy and not.
</p>
<h2>Respect</h2>
<p>
	Some claim that the caveat emptor doctrine maximizes respect for the customer by allowing them to decide for themself (Brusseau, n.d.), though others disagree because under this doctrine, the customer isn&apos;t required to be given the information needed to make an informed decision (Brusseau, n.d.).
	Clearly, this shows a huge <strong>*disrespect*</strong> for the customer.
	Allowing people to make their own decisions is liberating to them for sure, but only when they&apos;re provided with the information needed to actually make choice they want to.
	Otherwise, it&apos;s basically just a hodgepodge of luck, which is neither liberating nor respectful.
</p>
<p>
	The assignment again asks about age, but this time asks if being elderly makes caveat emptor <strong>*more*</strong> applicable and justifiable to the situation.
	Again, I&apos;d have to say no, it doesn&apos;t.
	Age is completely irrelevant to the case.
	McDonald&apos;s was serving dangerously-hot coffee.
	This isn&apos;t common practice, either.
	Despite Liebeck&apos;s years of wisdom, there was no cause to suspect that a spill would cause anything more than minor pain and stickiness.
</p>
<h2>Implicit contracts</h2>
<p>
	One argument against the caveat emptor thought process is that an implicit contract is made between those conducting a business transaction.
	The buyer pays good money, so it&apos;s expected that the seller provides them with a good product (Brusseau, n.d.).
	If this is the case, it protects the customer by ensuring that they get their money&apos;s worth.
	If the advertisements paint a particular picture of a product, the product had better live up to any promises made.
	If it doesn&apos;t, the customer&apos;ll be able to take action, for example, by suing the company.
	This argument makes a good compliment to the one companies make about drug testing: companies expect a full day&apos;s work for a full day&apos;s pay, and when drugs are used in the workplace, they don&apos;t get that.
	In the name of fairness, both sides should be getting what they&apos;re told beforehand that they&apos;re paying for.
</p>
<p>
	The implicit contract implies three main things: freedom, information, and honesty (Brusseau, n.d.). The customer mustn&apos;t be coerced into buying, and by the same token, the seller mustn&apos;t be coerced into selling. Both the buyer and the seller need to be well-informed of what is being sold and for how much. This is where honesty comes in. If the seller is advertising a particular product as having particular features and a particular level of quality, the product had better meet expectations. Implied warranties are heavily tied to implicit contracts. If the product doesn&apos;t meet the specifications of what was promised, the seller must replace it or provide a refund, at the very least. Some people disagree that an implied warranty is present in all implicit contracts though, and that the presence of such a warranty depends on the particular situation.
</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>
	Caveat emptor is an excuse for companies to abuse customers.
	They use it to claim customers can go elsewhere if they don&apos;t like the product; they don&apos;t have to buy low-quality goods.
	This allows companies to market unsafe and inferior products and can lead to absence of quality control.
	It&apos;d be somewhat justifiable as long as it came with a stipulation that companies have to provide all the details of what they&apos;re selling, but by definition, it doesn&apos;t.
	By definition, the caveat emptor attitude allows companies to obscure and omit pertinent facts about their products.
	In some cases, this leads to disappointment and feelings of betrayal.
	In other cases, it leads to outright dangerous situations.
	Especially if companies expect their full money&apos;s worth from their employees, they should be providing customers with <strong>*their*</strong> full money&apos;s worth as well.
	It&apos;s only fair, after all.
	In this way, the implicit contract attitude is a much more reasonable approach to the topic of buyer-seller relations.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		Brusseau, J. (n.d.). Consumers and Their Protections. Retrieved from <a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-04-consumers-and-their-protection.html"><code>http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-04-consumers-and-their-protection.html</code></a>
	</p>
	<p>
		Brusseau, J. (n.d.). Do Ads Need to Tell the Truth? Retrieved from <a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-02-do-ads-need-to-tell-the-truth.html"><code>http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-02-do-ads-need-to-tell-the-truth.html</code></a>
	</p>
	<p>
		Brusseau, J. (n.d.). Hot Coffee. Retrieved from <a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-05-case-studies.html#brusseau-ch12_s05_s04"><code>http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-05-case-studies.html#brusseau-ch12_s05_s04</code></a>
	</p>
	<p>
		Brusseau, J. (n.d.). We Buy, Therefore We Are: Consumerism and Advertising. Retrieved from <a href="http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-03-we-buy-therefore-we-are-consum.html"><code>http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-03-we-buy-therefore-we-are-consum.html</code></a>
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